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GOP Establishment: Stupid or Sinister?

Photo Credit: Lifestyle News

Photo Credit: Lifestyle News

A question I’ve been asked a lot lately goes a little something like this:

Beyond the fact it betrays the rule of law and rewards lawbreakers by giving them what they broke the law for in the first place, I don’t understand why all these Republican “leaders” want to engage in a scamnesty program that will just result in adding over $6 trillion more in debt for taxpayers while simultaneously allowing Democrats to register millions of more new voters. Hispanics have voted Republican only 31% of the time since 1980. Do they want the whole country to look as broke as California following the Reagan Amnesty, which was a Republican-leaning state for decades (GOP won California in 7 of the 10 previous presidential elections prior to the Reagan Amnesty) and now less than 30% of Californians are registered Republicans? Are these GOP “leaders” so stupid as to not understand they’re actively aiding and abetting their own destruction?

The answer, of course, is yes – they are this stupid. But the answer doesn’t end there. To truly understand what’s driving the GOP ruling class’ self-immolation train you have to realize why they’re this stupid.

There are two reasons for their stupidity.

The first is easy to identify, because we recognize the ruling class mindset is largely a non-partisan phenomenon. It seems nobody, regardless of party, gets more principled the longer they’re a part of the District of Corruption. The den of iniquity known as the beltway culture is like a rotting corpse that eventually infests everything and everybody it touches. Some have the depth of worldview, character, and courage to resist its side effects longer than others, but prolonged exposure over time eventually leads to even the best of us being infected with a lack of critical thinking, self-righteousness, and ambition masquerading as conviction.

Once infected, the patient then loses detachment from all reality outside of the 202 or 212 area codes. This produces an echo chamber, whereas a bunch of people presume to play God by making decisions with regular people’s lives they themselves haven’t had to live in a long time and no longer understand. From high atop their subsidized Valhalla they issue edicts and commandments they often exempt themselves from. Sure we complain, vent, and when we’re really upset we might even – gasp! – blog about it. Because nothing threatens gangster government like a blog.

However, when they do descend down to the depths to commiserate with we in the huddled masses, which is usually only for fundraisers or campaigning, they are often treated by their bosses (us) like they are rock stars and not our employees, which only feeds their egocentric existence. Instead of holding them accountable for what previous generations of Americans would’ve called treason, we often thank them for not selling us out even more. We then send them right back to the source of their temptation expecting a different result each time.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

So, yes, the insulated ruling class world these people are allowed to live in (often for decades) feeds their stupidity. But there is something else afoot here that is far more subtle and sinister.

Those that run the Republican Party are ashamed of their base. I say that knowing ashamed is a strong word, yet in this case it might not actually be strong enough. These are often successful and wealthy people. They understand Coke doesn’t make money promoting Pepsi, or that the Yankees shouldn’t take advice on how to build a winner from the Red Sox. They’re not morons. They just hate us.

To them the big argument between Republicans and Democrats isn’t a clash of worldviews with a civilization at stake. To them the big argument is whether the check from the taxpayer trough gets written out to Democrat special interests or theirs. This thing we call politics isn’t faith and ethics in action to these people, but rather a cynical battle of dueling self-interests. Therefore, it’s those of us who attempt to interject our faith and/or ethics into the political process that are the real threat to them—much more so than Democrats.

Democrats don’t threaten their way of life, but we do.

They’re fine arguing with Democrats about issues like job creation, because both of them wrongly believe that’s the government’s job. They fall apart when the conversation changes to what government shouldn’t do, or a culture’s moral responsibility. In other words, we’re often aligned with people who don’t share our value system. That is the recipe for a dysfunctional relationship.

And dysfunctional relationships often end in divorce.

They know the reason Mitt Romney lost in 2012 was the loss of the GOP base, not the Hispanic vote. They know Romney would’ve needed 72% of the Hispanic vote to win. They know these facts are readily available to all who care to research them for themselves. They know they’re lying to you, often using “conservative media” you frequent to do it. They know you’re alienated from the party.

They just don’t care.

See, this is all part of a greater plan, a plan to replace you with voters who want the same thing from government that they want. So they’re going to replace you with voters who believe in entitlement, bending the rules or outright breaking the law to get what they want, and don’t care about the Constitution or the “laws of nature and nature’s God” anymore than they do.

In the meantime they don’t mind losing a few elections if that’s what it takes to preserve their gravy train. Besides, many of these people have been there for decades anyway, so two or three crucial elections are barely a wrinkle in time for them. This explains why they don’t have the sense of urgency about America’s future that we do.

Once they’ve sufficiently watered down your influence within the Republican Party by flooding the electorate with more “government-Americans,” they’ll try and come back and make you part of the team again—but only on their terms, of course.

And their terms are stand for nothing meaningful, believe in nothing meaningful, but vote Republican just because we’re not Democrats. “After all,” they’ll say, “at least we still say ‘God bless America’ at our convention.”

The end game here is control. Always has been. They’re not ideologically driven one way or the other. They are purely agenda driven, and the agenda is control. Stand in the way of them being in control regardless of your ideology – either conservative or libertarian – and you’re a threat. This explains why these people go after us harder in primaries than they go after Democrats in general elections.

What for many years we have wrongly believed to be a battle between moderates and conservatives is really a battle for control. To believe these people have an ideology is giving them too much credit. Their only ideology is control. They want you involved—but on their terms. They want diversity in the party—but on their terms.

These people would rather lose elections than lose control, and that’s why they keep doing over and over again what has proven to be a loser every time it’s tried. That’s why they accept the liberal media’s talking points on the death of the Tea Party or social conservatives at face value. To admit defeat or to admit you’re relevant would be the same as admitting you have power and influence over the process, and the minute they admit that they lose control.

What we have viewed as “a battle for the soul of the Republican Party” is nothing of the sort. These people are soul-less. To them this is simply a clash of two factions within a board of directors for control of a corporation. They simply want control to pay off their investors/shareholders with dividends and/or coveted jobs/appointments. They don’t care what product the company sells or doesn’t sell, provided they’re in control.

The only way to beat these people is to realize this and beat them at their own game. The numbers have always been in our favor, but they have done a magnificent job of buying off several of our so-called leaders and champions, so we couldn’t sufficiently organize to overthrow them.

But that topic deserves its own book.

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You can friend “Steve Deace” on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow.

Illinois GOP Central Committee Picks “Combine” Lobbyists as Chair

Photo Credit: Tea Part 911

Photo Credit: Tea Part 911

In Illinois, there’s only one political party. It’s The Combine – the collaborative combination of Democrat and Republican politicians and party officials who work together to harvest the taxpayers’ money.

The Tea Party organizations in Illinois are up against The Combine. Understanding what that means requires understanding what The Combine is, and how it operates.

The “Combine”

About fifteen years ago, a descriptive label was coined to apply to the Illinois political environment by Chicago Tribune writer, John Kass. He called it “The Combine.”

Former Illinois U.S. Senator (1999-2005) Peter Fitzgerald was the last Senator or Governor to challenge The Combine. It cost him his political career.

In a 2008 Tribune article entitled “InCombine, cash is king, corruption is bipartisan,” Kass recounted an exchange with Fitzgerald three years after Fitzgerald declined to run for a second Senate term.

“[I] called former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, the Republican maverick from Illinois who tried to fight political corruption and paid for it. For this sin, he was driven out of Illinois politics by political bosses, by their spinners and media mouthpieces, who ridiculed him mercilessly. ‘Senator, what do you call that connection that Stuart Levine [a Republican fund-raiser found guilty of participating in Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s kick-back scheme] describes from the witness stand, you know that arrangement across party lines, with politically powerful men leveraging government to make money — what do you call it?’”

Here was Fitzgerald’s respond: “‘What do you call that Illinois political class that’s not committed to any party, they simply want to make money off the taxpayers?’ Fitzgerald said. ‘You know what to call them. The Illinois Combine,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘The bipartisan Illinois political combine. And all these guys being mentioned [in the Blagojevich case], they’re part of it. In the final analysis, The Combine’s allegiance is not to a party, but to their pocketbooks. They’re about making money off the taxpayers,’ Fitzgerald said.”

Kass closed his article writing, “He [Fitzgerald] should know. He fought The Combine and lost, and the empty suits running the Republican Party encourage their friendly scribes to blame the social conservatives for the disaster of the state GOP.”

That was written in 2008. Nothing has changed since.

Fitzgerald lost out to the Illinois Combine Republicans – who included Illinois Congressman and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, but that’s another story. For now, here are two examples of what Illinois Combine Republicans look like.

Republican Combine Guy #1: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

Nothing has changed since February 2010 when I wrote the following for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism.

“Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood represents the Illinois Combine in Obama’s Cabinet. His history in Illinois politics is that of a Republican chameleon.”

{Snip}

“The MSM loves LaHood because he’s a Bob Michel Republican. LaHood was an aide to Michel, former House Republican Minority Leader, and was elected to his seat after Michel retired. Bob went along to get along. Ray followed suit.”

“LaHood has long been an Illinois Combine Republican… [F]itzgerald beat Democrat incumbent Senator Carol Moseley Braun. Braun and Obama both worked at Allison Davis’s Chicago law firm that provided services to slum landlords, like Tony Rezko. Fitzgerald bucked the Combine on a couple of big-ticket federally-funded Illinois projects, one involving a $13 billion expansion of O’Hare Airport.”

{Snip}

“As far back as 2002, LaHood was working to oust his fellow Republican from the U.S. Senate. In late 2002, Rep. LaHood told the Chicago Sun-Times: ‘I’m thinking about trying to make sure Peter has an opponent in the 2004 Republican primary. I think we can do better than him.’ Soon thereafter, Illinois Republican leaders made it clear Fitzgerald would have trouble raising money for reelection and would have to spend several million from his personal fortune. Sen. Fitzgerald decided to retire and return to banking.”

“In 2004, State Senator Barack Obama was running against Republican Jack Ryan for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Fitzgerald when Ryan’s campaign mysteriously blew up. A California court opened his previously sealed divorce records wherein Ryan’s ex-wife, Jeri, alleged strange sexual tastes on Ryan’s part.”

“CNN reported LaHood’s reaction to Ryan’s situation: ‘…the Illinois congressional delegation had been largely silent about Ryan, leaving him to fend for himself. One Republican, Rep. Ray LaHood, had even called for Ryan to withdraw from the race.’”

“As the Ryan controversy built, the Chicago Tribune reported: The political impact of the revelations on Jack Ryan’s candidacy will play out over the next several days. One prominent Illinois Republican, U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood of Peoria, said he was ‘shocked’ that Ryan would run for public office carrying such baggage and called on him to get out of the race.”

Ryan withdrew from the race. Barack Obama easily beat his cannon fodder replacement, Alan Keyes.

On January 29, 2010, when President Obama spoke before GOP House members at the Renaissance Baltimore Harbor Place Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, Obama and LaHood struck a pose with LaHood pretending to be blocking for Obama in the presence of the Republicans.

Nothing new in that relationship.

Republican Combine Guy #2: William F. Cellini, “King of Clout”

For many years, William Cellini was a prominent Illinois Republican and Executive Director of the Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association. (Remember that organization.)

What’s changed since February 2010, when I wrote the following for Breitbart’s Big Journalism, is that Cellini is now in a federal prison, and, he is no longer an executive director.

“William F. Cellini, long-time GOP state power-broker seconded Gerald Ford’s nomination for President at the 1976 Republican National Convention. For four decades, regardless of which party ran the Illinois state government, Cellini did well, while attracting little attention.”

“That relative obscurity ended in October 2008 when Cellini was indicted by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office for conspiracy and extortion. The indictment, read here, describes how pay-to-play works in Illinois politics. Here’s an excerpt from Count 2 (of 4) in the indictment:

“As part of the conspiracy, CELLINI, [Stuart] Levine, [‘Tony’] Rezko, and Co-Conspirator A [identified by the Chicago Tribune as former Gov. Rod Blagojevich Chief of Staff Alonzo “Lon” Monk who is cooperating with the Feds] agreed that they would use their influence and Levine’s position [as a Trustee] at TRS [Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois with $30 billion in assets] to prevent [John] Rosenberg’s firm, Capri Capital, from receiving a planned $220 million allocation of TRS funds unless Rosenberg and Capri Capital agreed to raise or donate a substantial about of funds for the benefit of Public Official A [Blagojevich].

When Rosenberg threatened to expose the plan, CELLINI, Levine, Rezko, and Co-Conspirator A [Monk] acted together to prevent Rosenberg from telling law enforcement about the extortion plan. As a result of Rosenberg’s threat, CELLINI, Levine, Rezko, and Co-Conspirator A agreed that Capri Capital would receive the $220 million allocation, but that Capri Capital and Rosenberg would receive no further funds from the State of Illinois. (pp. 14-15)”

Continued in Part 2. Illinois GOP Central Committee picks “Combine” lobbyist as Chair (Part 2)

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Since 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles and blogs for several conservative websites, including the American Thinker and Breitbart’s Big Journalism & Big Government (as Archy Cary), been quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles are cited in Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation and in Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. Cary now writes for the Texas-based site teaparty911.com.

Vice President Biden: Cruz, Paul Control the GOP

Photo Credit: Matt Rourke

By Dave Boyer. At a fundraiser late Friday night in San Francisco, Mr. Biden said there is no one in the Republican Party in Congress with whom the administration can negotiate anymore.

“There’s no one with whom to deal with and there’s no one in charge anymore,” Mr. Biden said, at one point pounding the podium with his fist.

Referring to Mr. Paul and Mr. Cruz, both first-term senators, the vice president said he’s never before seen lawmakers with their conservative views.

“They are the ones that control the Republican party right now, literally,” Mr. Biden said. “I’ve never seen a time in all the years I was in the Senate that two freshmen have so much impact on the entirety of the Republican party.”

He did call them “bright young guys.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Biden slaps GOP for letting Cruz, Paul ‘control’ the party

By Paul Bedard. Just six months after he cut a fiscal cliff deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Vice President Joe Biden declared Friday night that the GOP has no adult leadership and he said it is being pushed around by two “bright new guys,” Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

“This is not your father’s Republican Party, it’s fundamentally different,” he said at a San Francisco Democratic Party fundraiser. “There’s no one with whom to deal with and there’s no one in charge anymore.”

In December and January, Biden worked closely with senior GOP leaders like McConnell to work out a budget deal that halted the nation’s fall over the so-called fiscal cliff.

But in his 10 minute address at the home of Dawn Ross and Doug Hickey, the CEO of BinWise, a beverage distribution company in San Francisco, Biden forgot all that to slam the emergence of Tea Party-backed Cruz and Paul, part of the group GOP Sen. John McCain dubbed “wing nuts.” Read more from this story HERE.

Both Parties Attack Obama’s Failure to Address Veterans’ Claims

Photo Credit: AP

Congress is turning up the heat on President Obama to cut the backlog of Veterans Affairs disability claims, which has gone up by 2,000 percent while the agency’s budget has increased by 40 percent over the past four years.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is the latest to call upon the president to be more aggressive, sending a letter this week asking him to “take direct action.”

“We need direct and public involvement from you to establish a clear path to end the backlog once and for all,” said the letter by Reps. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., and Patrick Murphy, D-Fla.

The number of veterans waiting for overdue disability claims is now at 600,000 with the average wait for first-time filings at 317 to 327 days, according to the letter.

“In many cases, veterans have waited and continue to wait 800 days, 900 days and even more than 1,000 days,” Coffman and Murphy said in the letter, cosigned by 164 other House Democrats and Republicans.

Read more from this story HERE.

How the GOP Establishment Blocked a Candidate it Didn’t Want

Photo Credit: Tea Party 911Pennsylvania State Republican Party (PSRP) officials did not want William “Bill” Russell running for the 12th Congressional District after Democrat Congressman John Murtha died on February 8, 2010, after serving 34 years in the House.

Beyond general anecdotal comments to the effect that Russell was “too conservative,” party officials never said why they didn’t want him. Here are highlights from the story of how they obstructed Russell’s candidacy from 2008 to 2010.

Russell decides to run against Democrat Congressman Murtha

Late in 2005, in an episode that made national news, Murtha accused U.S. Marines of having murdered innocent civilians in Haditha, Iraq. At the time, Russell was a career, fulltime Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve with a fine record that included service in the Middle East. Both he and his wife – she was pregnant at the time – were in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. After finding that she had escaped safely, he re-entered the burning building to help evacuate survivors.

According to Peg Luksik, who eventually became Russell’s campaign manager, Russell was “incensed” that Murtha’s attack on the Marines came while an investigation was still underway. So incensed, in fact, that he retired two years before his full, active duty retirement date and moved to Pennsylvania to run for Congress against Murtha.

It was a path that would put him under friendly fire from those who should have been his political allies.

Round 1: The 2008 election for the 12th Pennsylvania Congressional District

Initially, Pennsylvania’s G.O.P. officialdom was, according to Luksik, “unenthusiastic” about Russell’s candidacy, and, from the beginning, were “almost actively undermining of his efforts.” Until Russell entered the race, the G.O.P. had not planned to contest Murtha’s re-election.

Russell submitted slightly more than the required 1,000 signatures to be listed on the primary election ballot. The petition signatures were challenged, as is common. It was odd, though, that two of the challengers were local Republican Party officials.

A judge ruled that Russell’s petition had only 993 valid signatures. Russell’s only remaining path to getting on the November election ballot was through a primary election write-in effort. He needed 1,000 write-in votes in the Republican primary – where there were no names listed for the Republican Party – to face Murtha in the fall election. He received 4,000 votes. The November battle against Murtha was on.

But PSRP officials, unenthusiastic about his candidacy from the beginning, turned obstructive once Russell was the Party’s challenger to Murtha.

On October 11, 2008, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin came to Johnstown, PA for a rally. The video below chronicles the event, and (at the 2.53 min. mark) features Russell being interviewed.

Luksik was surprised when a senior PSRP official denied Russell, the district’s Republican candidate for Congress, a place on the podium. The decision was made more surprising because Russell was running a strong, well-financed campaign, and had even given money (about $20K total) to several G.O.P. county committees. According to Luksik, when she mentioned Russell campaign donations to other Republican candidates to the party official he was “furious” and said, “You should give us more money.”
Russell had shown he was “by any definition a team player” for the G.O.P., but to no avail.

According to Luksik, the PSRP official said, “The Presidential [McCain] campaign doesn’t want him” on the Palin podium. When Luksik queried the McCain campaign, they denied knowing about the matter. The McCain campaign told the PSRP to “put him on the podium.”

On Election Day, the PSRP routinely hands out “slates” to indicate the candidates the Party supports. On the G.O.P. slate distributed at the polls for the November 2008 general election, all the Republican candidates were listed – all except Bill Russell, that is.

Luksik explains it this way: “They [PSRP] didn’t want him elected. He was not a party regular. Not a part of the Republican establishment.”

PSRP opposition to Russell remains a mystery. Congressman Murtha was a legendary procurer of Congressional pork projects for his district. Any thorough investigation, like the one conducted on the Haditha Marines, into what was behind the friendly-fire opposition to Russell would need to audit the allocation of expenditures that accompanied Murtha’s pork projects and ask the question: Who benefited? Besides Pennsylvania tax-payers, of course.

Read Part 2 of “How the G.O.P. establishment blocked a conservative candidate it didn’t want“

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Since 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles and blogs for several conservative websites, including the American Thinker and Breitbart’s Big Journalism & Big Government (as Archy Cary), been quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles are cited in Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation and in Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. Cary now writes for the Texas-based site teaparty911.com.

The Civil War for the Soul of the Alaska Republican Party

Photo Credit: dmcdevit

Stung by election defeats and continual ground lost to encroaching socialism, the Republican Party in Alaska and elsewhere is going through its largest internal values inventory in a generation. In this process two disparate groups have come roaring to the surface revealing a wider chasm than ever. A civil war has erupted.

At the 2012 State Republican Convention the state delegates broke with party machinist tradition and elected Russ Millette as the chair of the Alaskan Republican Party and Debbie Brown as the vice-chair. The election represented a tremendous values shift toward the grass roots constitutional liberty wing of our party which Russ Millette represents.

The chagrined State Executive Committee (SEC) subsequently decided to undo the election results and purge the newly elected officers from office by filing spurious charges against them. On January 31st- Just two hours before he was scheduled to take office – Russ Millette was charged for failure to raise money for the Republican Party and removed as the chair elect. Debbie Brown then advanced to party chair. Now the same charge of failure to raise money has been leveled against her. Despite the fact the Chair Debbie Brown rescinded the April 8th SEC meeting, they plan to meet in Anchorage on April 8th at 5:30pm in order to purge her, retake the chairmanship, and protect their appointed positions.

I can’t tell you how disturbing this precedent is. When they nullified Russ Millette’s election to keep their leadership cabal in power indefinitely they didn’t just sin against our Republic. They committed THE sin against our Republic. The respect of succession of political power by popular vote is the very foundation our entire system of self-governance is built on.

Russ Millette is planning to vigorously appeal his removal from office at the next scheduled State Central Committee (SCC) meeting in Homer on May 25th. If chair Debbie Brown is purged prior to then, then the new chair can refuse to hear Millette’s appeal and the coup will be complete.

Millette is also raising legal funds from grass roots Republicans so he can file a fiduciary harm lawsuit against certain party members to force an audit of the ARP finances as required by party rules, and to get to the bottom of alleged financial mismanagement such as when APR funds were transferred out of the bank account in a scorched earth policy back in January. If you would like to support Russ’s legal campaign to force honesty and transparency in the ARP finances, you can donate electronically via his website and designate it for his legal fund. George Washington once said, “Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains taken to bring it to light.”

The Republican Party is in a war for its very spirit. Will a small cabal of political machinists continue to run the party for personal interest while continuing to lose ground to the conquering socialists like the corrupt Chiang Kai-shek did before Mao Zedong? Or will the party be returned back to its grass roots supporters? Your action or inaction will be the deciding factor for the future of unborn millions. Grass roots Republicans have a once in a generation chance to let light shine out of the darkness. The Republican Party must once again wield the torch of freedom that guided the footsteps of our Founding Fathers.

Please vote, get involved in your local political districts, and give money to Russ Millettes’s legal fund to give transparency to party finances. Plato once said, “The penalty good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.” The eyes of the world are on America and the Republican Party because, “The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind.”- Thomas Paine

Conservatives Revolt As Gay Marriage Lobbyist Appointed Head of Ohio Republican Party

Photo Credit: Lifestyle News

The Republican Party of Ohio has appointed as its executive director a registered lobbyist actively campaigning to redefine marriage in the state, deepening the conflict between voters and the party elite. The move triggered swift backlash, as a coalition of 80 conservatives from across the state issued a letter warning party bosses they “will not support them” in the future.

The new GOP leader is Matt Borges, a lobbyist for Equality Ohio, the group pressing to overturn the state’s constitutional amendment against same-sex “marriage.” He was hand-selected by retiring state GOP chairman Bob Bennett, who has led the party since 1988, and is seen as Bennett’s heir apparent.

“With this letter we put the party bosses on notice that we reject their betrayal of the party platform and our conservative values,” said Tom Zawistowski, the executive director of the Portage County Tea Party. “We will not support them going forward but will instead support those who are true to our cause.”

The letter represents the views of a broad coalition, “not just liberty group members and social conservative voters, but rank and file registered Republican voters,” it states.

“Some of our Republican officials seem hell-bent on alienating conservative voters and volunteers, which reduces voter turnout,” said Lori Viars, Vice President of Warren County Right To Life, who also serves as Vice Chair of the Warren County Republican Party. “They ignore the GOP platform, choosing to put themselves outside the mainstream of our party base.”

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Autopsy: Change The Politicians Not The Policies

Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey

Amidst the soul-searching being conducted by party leaders in pursuit of the solution to the GOP’s electoral problems, everyone is missing the obvious culprit. Whenever a private entity goes through a period of lethargic growth and management failures, it seeks new leadership. Yet, immediately following the election, Republicans reelected Mitch McConnell and John Boehner to be the face of the GOP in Washington. Talk about stuck on stupid.

In their “autopsy” report, the RNC notes the following: “The GOP today is a tale of two parties. One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future.”

Hmmm…maybe that has something to do with the fact that there are some new dynamic leaders on the state level. Where are they on the federal level? Nobody can look you in the eye – even supporters of Boehner and McConnell – and declare with a straight face that these two leaders are eloquent voices for our party’s principles and have a dynamic appeal to a broad populace. Likewise, even those who don’t necessarily share the principles of the Tea Party can easily agree that figures like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio evince a stronger, more persuasive image to voters than the current group of banal bulls.

Yesterday, The Hill published a poll asking respondents which method they preferred in order to balance the budget: slashing spending with no tax increases or a mix of both. A clear majority supported the conservative position. But when the pollster designated the two positions with party identifications, a plurality supported the Democrat approach, even though it was the same path that was soundly rejected without the party label. This is a very vivid example of the need to give the Republican politicians a facelift, not the policies.

In fact, it is the lack of passion and consistency to fight for these policies when it really counts that has gotten us into trouble. Republicans won the 2010 elections in a landslide, primarily with the mandate to get rid of Obamacare. There was no ambiguity about the results of that election. It had nothing to do with ground game, technology, immigration, gay marriage, minorities, etc. It was purely based on ideology of limited government, most notably, disquiet against Obamacare. The Democrats got crushed. Republicans should have taken the first opportunity to defund Obamacare in the CR or debt ceiling when the righteous indignation was still palpable. They failed to do it, opting instead to cut a backroom deal. They failed to inspire anyone. The voters saw through the fakery.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palin Is Right: To Win, GOP Must Adopt Tea Party Populism

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

The establishment Republican Party leaders and their sometime abettors in the establishment media would like to forget that the Tea Party uprising of 2009 and 2010 was as much a revolt against the entrenched GOP leadership as it was a rebellion against Barack Obama and his liberal agenda.

Tea Partiers and grassroots conservatives frustrated by the slow pace of change in the GOP or its tendency to equate change with lurching to the left were therefore delighted when former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took to the stage at CPAC and delivered a stinging rebuke to the advocates of big government Republicanism and the abandonment of the Republican Party’s support for traditional marriage and other elements of the traditional values agenda.

Most of the media coverage of Sarah Palin’s CPAC speech centered on her humorous tweaking of Karl Rove and America’s nanny-in-chief New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. However, those who stop there in their analysis of Governor Palin’s remarks are missing the most important element of her CPAC speech: her celebration of the populist elements of the Tea Party agenda and a call for the Republican Party to embrace them.

In the first of two key points in the speech, Palin invoked the wisdom of Lady Margaret Thatcher to remind Republicans that the way forward after the 2012 election disaster was not to be more like the Democrats, saying, “The permanent political class is in permanent political mode so where do we go from here? One of my idols, Lady Margaret Thatcher, she offered this advice after her party lost at the polls. She told fellow conservatives not to get lost in abstract debates and green-eye-shade accounting. Mrs. Thatcher advised conservatives to focus their concerns first and foremost on the people. She said; look at every problem from the grassroots, not from the top down. She also cautioned Conservatives not to go wobbly on their beliefs…”

Governor Palin also gave a good analysis of the disaster Obamanomics has wreaked upon America’s middle class. These facts are important, and should get more media coverage whenever the White House says the economy is improving and the recession is over — but pointing them out is not unique to Sarah Palin. What is unique and important is her analysis of how they relate to the growth of government and the growing divide between Washington and “heartland country” as Palin calls it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rush To Rand: ‘You’re A Hero’ (+audio)

Talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh today called Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a hero for facing off against the Obama administration and surviving. Limbaugh told Paul today: “Nobody in the Republican Party has dared take this president on. You did last night, and you’re alive today to talk about it, and nobody’s calling you names.

“You are, in certain ways, a hero to a lot of people today, and I hope this kind of thing continues.”

Limbaugh noted Paul has received criticism, but he called the filibuster “a seminal event last night that could change the direction that we are all heading, particularly in terms of educating and informing the American people about what actually is happening in their country.”

Paul’s filibustered President Obama’s nomination for CIA director. His move was declared a victory today when Attorney General Eric Holder issued a terse response to the question the senator raised during nearly 13 hours of talking on the Senate floor.

“It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no,” Holder responded.

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